MADISON, Wis. — Out of the inflationary ashes that impacted nearly all aspects of living in the late 1970s and early 1980s, rose a phoenix in the industry that sought to help clients invest and manage assets to counter the country's economic fallout at the time.
That entity, MEMBERS Capital Advisors, came into being in 1982 and was originally known as the Century Investment Management Co. The registered investment advisor affiliate of CUNA Mutual Group, MCA celebrated its 25th anniversary Oct. 23 marking a time ripe for its development, said Mike Daubs, MCA's first president and the key visionary who brought the company to fruition.
"We had just finished a pretty tough decade of the '70s, where we actually had inflation of 10%," Daubs said. "The economy was growing, but if you took the inflation out of it, it was flat. Prime rate was 21% and T-bills were 15, 16 and 17% during that same period. It was a whole new ball game."
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Daubs said he approached the CUNA Mutual Life Insurance Co. board about creating "a separate company focused only on investing the assets and managing those assets in ways that are totally consistent with the needs of our customers and policyholders as well as the needs of the company itself."
CIMCO started with five employees, $725 million in assets in 1982, few credit union clients and operated as a general account for two companies. Today MCA has 75 employees, more than $15 billion in assets under management and an expanded lineup of insurance, mutual funds and other investment options.
In 1984, CIMCO's parent company, Century Life of America, pioneered the launch of Variable Universal Life Insurance with assets managed by CIMCO. Five years later, Century Life and CUNA Mutual announced a permanent affiliation, and CIMCO moved to Madison. During the 1990s, CIMCO added several new mutual funds and other investment options to its line-up, including the 1997 debut of MEMBERS Mutual Funds. In 2000, CIMCO changed its name to MEMBERS Capital Advisors.
After a successful 32-year run Daubs retired in March 2006 after starting at CIMCO in 1973 as manager of the bond and common stock portfolios. He became vice president in 1978, was named senior vice president of investments in 1983 and was then named chief investment officer and senior vice president for CUNA Mutual in February 1989.
In 2005, David Marks was tapped to take the helm becoming MCA's president and chief investment officer of CUNA Mutual. The 35-year investment services veteran came to MCA from Citigroup Insurance Investments as its senior executive vice president and chief investment officer. Coming aboard, it was not his intent to steer MCA in a completely different direction but to take the subsidiary to newer heights.
"We've made a lot of changes to the original model, but at least one thing has remained the same," Marks said. "We still offer each of our clients the same attention to detail, whether they are credit unions using our institutional managed account services to manage some or all of the credit union's pre-funding investments."
Indeed, while MCA retained much of the foundation laid by its predecessors, MCA grew and expanded its capabilities to include:
-Development of a state-of-the-art trading room, which opened in April 2007, making the most of technology, outside resources and research;
-The addition of 30 new professionals to the staff, recruited from firms from Wall Street to San Francisco;
-A realigned portfolio management structure to place more focus on individual accountability while maintaining a strong team dynamic; and
-The addition of more types of investments including not just stocks, bonds and related derivatives, but also commercial mortgage loans, private placement bonds, and alternative investments like private equity, mezzanine financings and hedge funds.
MCA's employees were treated to ice cream sundaes assembled by Marks and Jeff Post, president of CUNA Mutual, during the recent anniversary party. Daubs and others from the company's past also attended the festivities. To commemorate the special day, a video was made with the three leaders extolling the company's legacy and its future mission of helping credit union employees and members to save for and live in retirement.
"This is critical," Marks said. "There are 78 million baby boomers getting ready to retire, and many of them are credit union members and employees. Our focus is on developing innovative retirement savings and income products. As an insurance company with the asset management capabilities that CUNA Mutual has with MCA, we have a very strong competitive posture and a bright outlook for the next 25 years."
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